CX – Venezuela

A friend is teaching overseas – in Venezuela, but fortunately not in Caracas. She sends these links (and her descriptions of them):

Caracas Chronicles: Excellent analysis and insight into political climate.

El Universal: Provides translations of Spanish news stories. Stories are brief, but informative.

I omit her personal comments about the situation there; this is a public forum, and I do not wish her words to cause her any problems. While nothing more than factual descriptions of what is going on, these are not rational times there and I do not want her words misconstrued and used against her. The stories found at the links above speak for themselves, and probably provide a more current take on the situation than can be found in the American press.

File updates – Extemp, PF – voting, and CX

The files were updated this morning, through Saturday 2-22: Extemp, CX, and the PF files on the Feb 2014 topic (voting).

CX 2014-2015 – Oceans topic

The first article for next season! (It’s never too early to think ahead.)

CX – Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela

Cuba – recent changes there.

Mexico – lessons from Colombia, and NAFTA‘s legacy (and the best article title in a while). Plus, the recent economic meeting there.

Venezuela – Jailing the opposition, and what others think.

The situation in Venezuela and the summit in Mexico, brief though it was, generated more articles than I’m posting here. You can find them in the CX folder, just updated

FX – What you should be reading

A most interesting week worldwide…

Ukraine – Fisher on competing stories there, and the chance for civil war. Or would partitioning the country be a better solution?

The problems in the Central African Republic. (Note the article source – would the fact that much of the trouble there has religious overtones bias an article from this source? Notice the disclaimer at the end of the article.)

China’s economic issues.

Egypt, and a division with implications for its future.

Counterterrorism advice from an unlikely source in Yemen.

NX – What you should be reading

Not much domestic news of note this week, though there’s been a lot on the international scene. Best reading of the past week is this Krugman article on economic inequality.

LD – J/F 2014 – resource extraction

Even if the initial resource extraction gives priority to environmental protection this article suggests that the post-extraction phase has some issues to it. RE isn’t just an on/off proposition, it’s more of an on/afterwards issue.

China’s impact, for one country, can be found here.

PF March 2014 – Single-gender classrooms

NYT and WP articles from September 2011, and Strauss on a meta-analysis. These articles suggest that advocating for single-gender classrooms will be more about social issues than academic performance.

Where it’s happening now.

The ACCES web site – American Council for CoEducational Schooling

The old NASSPE web address (National Association for Single-Sex Public Education); they’ve changed their name to NACE (National Association for Choice in Education) and their new web site is here.

The NEA page on single-gender education

The greatschools.org page on single-sex schools (which is technically different from single-gender classrooms.)

 

NX FX – Extemp files update

The extemp files were just updated; current through Thursday 2-13-14.

NX – What you should be reading

ACA – Lane on health care; while I don’t often agree with this writer, he’s on target here. Single payer, anyone?

More on the really rich, and the really really rich. And the middle class (in reply to an article posted earlier). And the unemployed.

Meyerson with a must-read article. Is the economy in the shape it’s in because we’ve been sold a bill of goods?